Extensive Tracking of Nomadic Waterbird Movements Reveals an Inland Flyway.

Waterbirds are highly mobile and have the ability to respond to environmental conditions opportunistically at multiple scales. Mobility is particularly crucial for aggregate-nesting species dependent on breeding habitat in arid and semi-arid wetlands, which can be ephemeral and unpredictable. We aimed to address knowledge gaps about movement routes for aggregate-nesting nomadic waterbird species by tracking them in numbers sufficient to make robust assessment of their movement patterns.

Satellite telemetry reveals complex mixed movement strategies in ibis and spoonbills of Australia: implications for water and wetland management.

Waterbird population and species diversity maintenance are important outcomes of wetland conservation management, but knowledge gaps regarding waterbird movements affect our ability to understand and predict waterbird responses to management at appropriate scales. Movement tracking using satellite telemetry is now allowing us to fill these knowledge gaps for highly mobile waterbirds at continental scales, including in remote areas for which data have been historically difficult to acquire. We used GPS satellite telemetry to track the movements of 122 individuals of three species of ibis and spoonbills (Threskiornithidae) in Australia from 2016 to 2023.

Exploring patterns of female house mouse spatial organisation among outbreaking and stable populations.

The size and distribution of home ranges reflect how individuals within a population use, defend, and share space and resources, and may thus be an important predictor of population-level dynamics. Eruptive species, such as the house mouse in Australian grain-growing regions, are an ideal species in which to investigate variations in space use and home range overlap between stable and outbreaking populations. In this study, we use spatially explicit capture-recapture models to explore if space use and home range overlap among female mice could serve as indicators of changes in population density leading into summer.

Effects of harvesting and stubble management on abundance of pest rodents (Mus musculus) in a conservation agriculture system.

Background: The shift to more environmentally sensitive agricultural practices over the last several decades has changed farmland landscapes worldwide. Changes including no-till and retaining high biomass mulch has been coincident with an increase in rodent pests in South Africa, India, South America and Europe, indicating a possible conflict between conservation agriculture (CA) and rodent pest management. Research on effects of various crop management practices associated with CA on pest rodent population dynamics is needed to anticipate and develop CA-relevant management strategies.

Effects of background food on alternative grain uptake and zinc phosphide efficacy in wild house mice.

Background: House mice (Mus musculus) cause significant, ongoing losses to grain crops in Australia, particularly during mouse plagues. Zinc phosphide (ZnP) coated grain is used for control, but with variable success. In a laboratory setting, we tested if mice would (i) switch from consumption of one grain type to another when presented with an alternative and (ii) consume ZnP-treated grains when presented as a choice with a different grain.

Separating two tightly linked species-defining phenotypes in Bactrocera with hybrid recombinant analysis.

Background: Bactrocera tryoni and Bactrocera neohumeralis mate asynchronously; the former mates exclusively around dusk while the latter mates during the day. The two species also differ in the colour of the post-pronotal lobe (callus), which is predominantly yellow in B. tryoni and brown in B.